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NASA Rover May Contaminate Its Samples of Mars
sciencehabit writes "The Curiosity rover will definitely find evidence of an advanced civilization if it lands safely on Mars. That's because rock samples the rover drills are likely to be contaminated with bits of Teflon from the rover's machinery, NASA announced during a press teleconference. The bits of Teflon can then mix with the sample, which will be vaporized for analysis. The problem for the scientists is that Teflon is two-thirds carbon — the same element they are looking for on Mars."
Fortunately, this problem isn't a showstopper: "...there are still mitigation steps to take if SAM's analysis is potentially compromised. Contaminant production appears to be stronger in the drill's percussion mode, when it pounds powerfully and rapidly on Martian rock. So ratcheting the percussion down, or switching over to the more gentle rotary mode, may make the issue more manageable. If that doesn't work, the MSL team could just take the drill out of commission, solely scooping soil instead of also boring into rock. Curiosity could still access the interior of some Martian rocks by rolling over them with its wheels, Grotzinger said. But all in all, he's confident that the team will figure things out in the next month or two."
I think somebody had another English-metric goof when they were doing their stoichiometry.
(CF2)n -> 24% carbon, 76% fluorine by mass, at least by my calculations.
That much money and still no attention to detail?
It's going to beam back photos, and even 720p video, of Mars that show Mars as it would look from human eyes.
I know its other mission is far grander, far more important, but I just find the concept of that camera to be enough.
Right now, the rover is in *space*. I can definitely understand catching this problem in simulations or in on-Earth tests, or catching it belatedly when they finally get to Mars and wonder why all the rocks contain fluorine, but in space? Only thing I can think of is "someone re-ran some simulations and noticed they messed up", which doesn't seem very probable (unless the engineers had been suspecting this since before launch, and only now have sufficient "proof").
Then again, I'm not a rocket scientist, so I probably missed something.
They probably have an identical unit to mess with locally in case of electrics problems. If something goes wrong in space it is extremely helpful to have a physical replica you can actually put your hands on and experiment with to find the best fix.
I'm sure they caught it with the duplicate here on earth. For just about every NASA mission they make at least one duplicate to be used for troubleshooting and mission prep here on terra firma.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Well, at least the samples won't get stuck.
Can't they find a nice abrasive rock to grind on till the Teflon wears off?
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Are there any drill bits or saw blades that are Teflon coated. Diamond coated yes , but Teflon. Maybe they where thinking to reduce heat when drilling because you cannot really bring liquid to cool it. But then again Mars is pretty cold at night.
Maybe they never cooked anything in Teflon pan.
I don't know how sensitive the detector they are using is, but they should also be able to detect the fluorine molecules (which outnumber the carbon 2 to 1, unlike what TFA claims). I don't imagine they expect to find a lot of fluorine in the rocks on Mars, so the presence of fluorine indicates the sample is contaminated and they should ignore the carbon. If the analysis is really sensitive, they could even correlate the amount of fluorine with the expected amount of carbon (since it should be exactly 2 to 1), allowing the contaminating carbon to be eliminate from the analysis.
This assumes the fluorine can be accurately analyzed, which may be a major issue since it is extremely reactive. I'm not a chemist, though, so I don't know how big an issue that could be.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
The Teflon is not on the drill bit; it rubs off of sealing rings in the main drill assembly. I know it's tough for you to believe, but the people who send robotic probes to other planets are, by and large, not idiots.
There's nothing poisonous about eating Teflon, only when you breathe in the fumes. (Just like the diacetyl used in popcorn.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
They could have used a diamond-tipped drill.
For this kind of thing, you typically deliver three pieces of hardware at the very least: The flight model (FM), flight spare (FS) and engineering model (EM). The FM goes on the rocket, the FS sits around in case you damage the FM before launch, and you run tests on the EM. You can keep running tests on the EM during cruise and surface operations. You might learn new things then. You certainly don't want the EM to teach you alarming new things after the FM has already launched, but it's better than having the FM surprise you later.
Yes, get rid of your teflon cookware because people are just dying left and right from this product that everyone has been using for the last 50 years.~
While you are at it you may want to move to soaps that don't use sodium lauryl sulfate since that kills even more people than teflon does. ~
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
From TFA:
"Teflon is rubbed off those seals into the material," said Pete Theisinger, MSL project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "It then becomes part of the sample."
I don't see any mention of the bits, but I suppose "seals" could be code for "bits."
MIB did it.
Teflon is not poisoning you.
You are eating the flakes and they are going out with the rest of the solid waste. Teflon is not digestible.
Perhaps not poisonous, per se, but to hell with my eggs looking like I sprinkled bits of burned tinfoil all over them. I'm so over that.
I remember the guy who died because of his addiction to smelling microwaved popcorn at a constant.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?" - S.R. Hadden in Contact
Should be enough fuel for a turn around. :-)
Whoa, Mr. Serious McSnarky! Calm yourself, I was just enjoying going on an OT rant.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
Cant be necessarily GOOD for me, though. Serious, it looks like I cracked a shitton of fresh pepper on my eggs every time I use the thing. Pretty soon, I will be unstickable.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
DuPont will be very quick to remind you that if the provider didn't pay the DuPont-tax, they cannot call PolyTetraFluoroEthylene (PTFE) by the trademark Teflon!
Of course, this is great news for nasa, as it means the mission couldn't possibly have been compromised by Teflon, so long as they didn't pay DuPont money!
(bonus: captcha is 'screwed')
Oooh, I loved that man... and that moment.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
oh yeah ? then why did they launch without fixing the problem ?
Lab testing of a backup version of the drill uncovered the contamination problem shortly before launch of the rover and its drill last November, according to Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
if that does NOT make them idiots i dont know what does.
Well he didn't die..... they diacetyl just damaged his lungs so he had trouble breathing. Same thing happened to several Orville Redenbacher employees.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
if that does NOT make them idiots i dont know what does.
Would you want to be the manager who had to tell everyone that the mission will be delayed three years because of possible contamination in one experiment?
Or do you launch anyway and live with 95% of the science returns while looking for a workaround for this problem?
You might then be suitable for politics.
Sorry, I have ran into too many people who believe those things without knowing the science behind it.
http://lisa.drbronner.com/?p=197
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Cant be necessarily GOOD for me, though. Serious, it looks like I cracked a shitton of fresh pepper on my eggs every time I use the thing. Pretty soon, I will be unstickable.
Depends on your definition of good. The lack of friction is unchanged. Its not staying in your body unless you have something really weird going on. I've occasionally wondered if gelatin capsules of powdered teflon would make a good medical stool softener. My guess is yes, but the conventional treatment material is much cheaper. Some idiot would probably find a way to contaminate the powder by embedding anaerobic bacteria in it, or it would psuedo-creep-sinter in the capsules making a little pellet instead of a dispersed powder (so you could encapsulate each grain in something digestible, but this is getting ridiculously expensive).
Seriously at sane temperatures its probably one of the least biologically active materials in your house. Think of non-biodegradable plastic. This stuff is ultra-uber-leet-non-bio-degradable plastic.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You don't know what does:
Once in SAM, Teflon causes limited problems, says Mahaffy. When the heating that drives gaseous compounds into the analytical instrumentation reaches about 600C on its way to 1000C, most of the Teflon decomposes. It produces mostly small, easily identified compounds of carbon and fluorine, he says. And they contaminate only a small fraction of the range of compounds expected from biologically produced carbon compounds, at least the sort remaining from earthly life.
If you're going to quote from the article, it helps to read the whole thing. Or would you have preferred they scrap a multi-billion-dollar launch, to embark on a months-long clean-room retrofit of the rover, certainly missing their Mars launch window, delaying the project for at least several years, at a total cost to taxpayers of billions more dollars? It's a minor problem, which they've chosen to deal with. Ergo, not idiots.
It is not good nor bad, it is just is non-nutritive. It can indeed look terrible, but it is not harming you.
For non stick I recommend a properly seasoned cast iron fry pan. For things where you want a bit of stick (pan fried chicken) or tasks like making gravy a nice stainless steel one.
Time to offend someone
I'm lending Obama my pan. I liked the guy, but he needs all the help he can get at this point.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
I've always thought it wasn't good for you either way, but thanks to you and others on slashdot, maybe I'll save some money and grow accustomed to the teflon flavor.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
My mom got me a good pan, but it's too small to make a substantial omelet. I can't remember the material used in it.
Can you believe my original comment got up to a score of 4, Informative? It got downgraded to 3, and I'm kinda glad for that. I'm not being informative in the slightest.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
Just buy good quality cookware, and if you are actually worried then get some with the new titanium ceramic coatings, they work better and aren't as fragile.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
They have found the the flourocarbons in people blood and fat. Regardless of whether this is good or bad I would rather use stainless and a little butter.
love is just extroverted narcissism
So what's the purpose of the FS after launch?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
It gets donated to the Smithsonian
As far a comments being modded in strange ways I have had some very snaky comments get modded insightful even though I was going for funny so it doesn't surprise me much at all. The material in the good pan might be hard anodized aluminum which provides a decent non stick surface. I still prefer the cast iron and stainless steel ones that are nice and thick. My cast iron fry pans are easy to clean and can be rinsed clean of anything left in them and then I coat lightly with oil and heat until it start to smoke. This keeps the pan nice and non stick. The stainless steel ones are a bit more difficult but then using a Brillo pad works wonders for cleaning them.
Time to offend someone
Read the article. The teflon is on the seals not the drill
You can find all kinds of stuff at levels that don't matter.
I would suggest cast iron before stainless for eggs. I like stainless for general fry purposes though. I just like stuff that lasts, which teflon pans never do.
Meh, obviously someone doesn't understand basic economics (big shock it's Hollywood). Almost all of the cost is in R&D, physical production is probably a rounding error on a typical NASA project. Plus there have been instances where the mission primary has been damaged and the trainer ended up flying, in those cases the ROI for the backup is almost infinite when you compare the cost of fabrication to the cost of the mission as a whole.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Just put a steel brush attachment on your electric drill, the teflon will come off eaily. As will burned-on food.
Free Martian Whores!
That is comment is ignorant and ill-informed. The employees are working for CALTECH / JPL, the among the best engineers in the world. It is really easy to criticize after the fact, but the MSL is very complex machine and there are bound to be glitches. So far everything has gone pretty much as planned; compare that to the Russian Mars mission which ended up at the bottom of the Pacific while MSL was flying to Mars before you make bonehead comments.
Invest in a good cast iron skillet, at least 12", and take good care of it. It will take good care of you for the rest of your life. If you're lucky, you can find a cheap one at a garage sale. Otherwise one from Lodge will do just fine. Some things just haven't been improved on.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Nothing. The FS is just a full set of spare parts. They may not even have been assembled. Maybe you assemble them as a second quasi-EM and run more tests, maybe you assemble them and write a proposal to do science in an analog environment on earth. Reviewers get excited if you tell them you're going to do science using flight hardware. Phoenix was supposedly built from the flight spares of MPL, so you can always hope that your hardware will see a second mission.
Eggs can be a little tricky in stainless, generally I use medium heat and let the butter melt, drive off the water and turn brown before I put the eggs in.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Think of how much you can shrink the schedule by testing the equipment and analyzing the test results while the device is on its way.
What is the purpose of teflon coated seals? Are they to battle Martian magma goblins? How do the seals survive exposure to the Martian atmosphere? My God man, it's inhumane!
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
I got rid of my teflon cookware after my mom killed her two completely different birds in the space of 10 minutes with teflon fumes at her house. I know the fumes kills birds I don't know what they do to my lungs or body long term and don't want to find out.
^^THIS^^
Or just heat it to red-hot and wait till it stops smoking.
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We see here one of the primary strengths of robotics over human missions, namely, the speed with which one can correct errors . It'll be no more than 10 years, er, 20, no make that 30 or even... 40 years before they can get another mission up there with a drill that isn't contaminated, maybe. With a manned mission, they'd be able to troubleshoot the drill on the spot, which is clearly an inferior process.
Almost all of the cost is in R&D, physical production is probably a rounding error on a typical NASA project.
Not really R&D so much as test, qualification, and documentation. Everything gets tested (generally test units that don't fly) to show that it will do what it's supposed to in the environment that it's supposed to for as long as it's supposed to. It's lots of environmental and life testing, plus redesign and retest when things fail. And because you're building only one, or maybe 2, you don't get to spread those costs over a hundred thousand or a few million units like you do with a car or an iphone. When you can't go fix it, you test everything as much as possible to make sure it will work. And things still fail, because there's always some bad luck or an unexpected environment, or the test didn't replicate the environment the way it was supposed to.
Why not just drill (almost) horizontally into a rock close to ground level? The samples will fall near the base of the rock, and the Teflon from the housing will fall one drill bit length away from the rock. It only falls onto your sample if you drill vertically, no?
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
Wow, you got a really shitty pan. Next time, spend a few extra bucks and get the good stuff on cookware. It really is worth it, especially if you cook a lot.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
So some people have said they have a duplicate drill here on earth. Can't they at least roughly simulate the same work that the Mars one is going to do, and see how much contamination happens, then compensate in the results? Totally out of my field, so I have no idea.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
You're not supposed to use metal utensils on Teflon. I have plenty of 5 year old pans that don't have any Teflon coming off. Once that starts happening, though, it's time to replace them.
If the Mars Polar Lander crash-lands on Mars, does it make a sound?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Huh. They aren't exactly rocket scientists either. No, wait a minute....
We won't be able to afford that. We'll be busy terraforming Earth.
True, but the assembly-line concept still exists. If you are building or testing or whatevering a part, chances are that before you got it right you had to make 10 of them anyway, and so making a few extra is just a tiny marginal cost.
Maybe if you're talking about telescope mirrors it is a different situation (months to years of effort on a single piece). However, if you give me any assembly job to do then having me do each step twice instead of once is a pretty small cost in the big scheme of things.